Sunless Sea

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Lose your mind. Eat your crew. Die. Then try again.

Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, iPhone
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (83% of 9,569 reviews); Metacritic 81 (PC)
Length: many hours over several captains
Players: 1
Made by: Failbetter Games
Released: 2015

What frightens You steer a small steamship out across a black underground sea, where the dark slowly fills your crew with terror until they see things and mutiny, and the islands hold drowned gods, cannibal crews, sentient icebergs and worse.
Content: cannibalism (text), violence (text), optional text descriptions of sex.

Sunless Sea is a Gothic horror exploration RPG set on the Unterzee, a vast dark ocean beneath Victorian London. You captain a steamship, hire officers, trade and explore strange islands, while fuel, food and your crew's terror run down and death is frequent.

About Sunless Sea

Sunless Sea is made by Failbetter Games, the London studio behind the browser game Fallen London, and is set in the same world. It came out on PC and Mac in February 2015 after a Kickstarter campaign, and later came to PlayStation 4, iPad, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One as the Zubmariner Edition, which adds the expansion that lets you dive below the surface.

London has been stolen and carried down into a vast cavern beneath the earth, on the shore of a dark underground ocean, the Unterzee. You are a new captain with a small steamship, a few crew and an ambition: find your father's bones, make a fortune, write a book, or something stranger. Out on the zee you trade, take on officers with their own stories, and look for islands that hold over 350,000 words of tales.

The horror is quiet and constant. Your ship's lamp is the only light on the water. Darkness raises your crew's terror, and as it climbs they have nightmares, see things that are not there and eventually mutiny. Fuel and food run out, giant crabs, bats and monsters roam, and stories end in madness, cannibalism or worse. Your captain will die, and the next one inherits a little of what came before.

It is slow, text-heavy and often cruel, and many players love it for its writing. It suits readers who like Lovecraftian and Gothic horror told through stories, and patient players who do not mind starting over.

How to play Sunless Sea

Choose your captain's ambition and background, then leave London's harbour in your steamship.
Steer across the zee, managing fuel, supplies and your crew's terror.
Visit islands and ports to trade, take on officers and follow their stories.
Keep your lamp lit to hold the terror down, or put it out to slip past enemies and save fuel.
Return to London to rest and resupply; when your captain dies, pass on what you can to the next.

Screenshots

Sunless Sea screenshot: a small steamship approaches the Chapel of Lights, a dark island dotted with candles, on a black sea

Sunless Sea screenshot: the player's ship leaves Wolfstack Docks in Fallen London, lit windows along the dark harbour

Sunless Sea screenshot: the ship's lamp lights the way toward Lorkin's Port, a huge glowing green coral-like island

Sunless Sea screenshot: the ship fights a Glorious Dreadnought near Zelo's Town, red firing arcs across the dark water

Tips

Return to London often in your first voyages; terror drops when you come home.
Carry more fuel and supplies than you think you need.
Watch your hunger and fuel gauges on every long trip; running out far from port is a common death.
Read the stories closely; many have choices that are cheaper or deadlier than they look.